Is President Obama a Christian? Is Glenn Beck? That's the question that has been swirling in the media this week. The answer may lie in how "Christian" is defined and whether the Mormon church, to which Beck belongs, considers Protestants to be Christians.

No amount of Bible reading, sermons masquerading as prayers and Christian hymns can cover up Beck's civil religion that slides back and forth between the Bible and nationalism, between authentic faith and patriotic religion. What is important to Beck is belief in God - God generically - not a specific understanding of God revealed in the biblical witness, but God who appears in nature and from which one draws universal truths.

The renowned physicist Stephen Hawking had previously argued belief in a creator was not incompatible with science but in a new book, "The Grand Design," he concludes the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something," Hawking asserts.

"The nonsense about President Obama being a Muslim has got to stop," Coulter wrote on the conservative website TownHall.com. "I rise to defend him from this absurd accusation by pointing out that he is obviously an atheist."

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing," Hawking and his co-author, Caltech physicist Leonard Mlodinow, write in "The Grand Design," which is due to be issued next week. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

A professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of California–Berkeley quit the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), voicing concern that North America's leading organization for biblical scholarship had welcomed "the views of creationists, snake-handlers, and faith healers." Several religious studies scholars were skeptical about the claim that Christian fundamentalists had invaded SBL to silence other perspectives and proselytize. More likely, several said, Hendel is simply frustrated that an increased number of religious scholars have joined SBL's ranks.

There is no doubt that Beck has a following. Gallup has ranked him as the fourth most admired man—just ahead of Pope Benedict XVI—and millions tune in to his daily broadcasts. But, as his religious rhetoric attests, Beck has gone fishing for a new audience recently.

Minoo Vosough can still hear the guards' boots marching down the cold hallways of Iran's Gohardasht prison. The screams of other inmates burn her ears. She was arrested in Tehran more than 25 years ago - beaten, interrogated and thrown into solitary confinement. She is a Baha'i.

Unfortunately for Mr. Obama and his boutique constituency of scientific “experts,” the American people have very strong views when it comes to issues dealing with the sanctity of human life.

Political activist groups continued to debate the Islamic center proposed to be built near the site of the World Trade Center. Some activists say that while all Muslims may not be terrorists, they remind people of terrorists, calling for a change of location for the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque."